Beekeeping, Gardening and Quilting in Eastern Wake County, North Carolina

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Checking Bees

I was gonna extract honey today but things happened but I did check on some of the hives which took most of the morning.

Hive #6 - there was no queen and no brood. This is the hive that we split from Hive #4 on 5/19/11. Took 2 frames with brood and a queen cell from Nuc #4 and put in the bottom brood box. Took off the top super and put on Nuc #4.

Nuc #4 - they're doing great and saw the queen. They had 3 empty frames in the brood box. So with all the moving around, they have room now and still have brood. The queen is busy in that nuc. And the super that was added from Hive #6 has 9 frames.

The two frames from the supers went into the freezer for use later as did the brood box frames from Hive #5.

I don't have any extra supers until I take some honey. I bought a super with frames from a local bee supplier and they're not the same size as what I have been getting. They have a new supplier and I guess they just don't match the old products exactly. The difference was enough so I couldn't close the hive top and robbing would be a big problem right now. It's a right good drive so I won't be taking them back - I'll just have to remember to keep all those frames in the same box. So that's how I ended up with just 9 frames in two supers.

When I take honey next weekend (hopefully), I will put a couple of empties in those two supers. Maybe even take a couple of more frames - they'll have time to fill them before cold weather.